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The Metal Box Pension Scheme, a £1.5bn UK pension fund with an unusually diverse spread of investments, has increased its roster of fund managers by 60% in its last financial year.

During the year to the end of March, the pension fund raised its number of fund managers from 23 to 37 and branched out into new investments, which included various emerging markets funds, reinsurance assets and distressed credit funds.

The fund manages investments on behalf of 21,000 current and former UK employees of the CarnaudMetalbox Group, a Yorkshire-based firm that manufactures machinery for producing cans.

The fund hired Genesis Asset Managers to invest in emerging markets equities in February, and had £10m invested with them as at March 31. It also took on seven hedge funds: Brevan Howard, Caliburn Capital Partners, Ivory Offshore Advance Fund, Maverick Fund, Och-Ziff Management Europe, Odey Asset Management and Plainfield Asset Management, according to its annual report.

The scheme’s pensions manager, Cathy Ashton, told members that “the scheme now invests in a much wider range of asset classes, including some opportunities which took advantage of depressed market conditions”.

She added that the changes were aimed at “reducing the investment risks being run by the scheme whilst maintaining the level of expected investment returns”.

Ashton declined to comment this afternoon, beyond what was already public in the scheme report. A spokesman for the pension scheme’s parent company, Crown Holdings, based in the US, did not respond to a request for comment.

Metal Box’s strategy appears to have paid off during the 12-month period. The scheme made 19.4% on its money during the year, compared to a rise of 9% in its “LiabilityWatch” benchmark, which is based on gilts and intended as a gauge of the scheme’s liabilities. But over the longer term, the scheme is behind this benchmark.